Trump reignites election debate, renews push for SAVE America Act in primetime speech

On Thursday, President Donald Trump delivered a primetime White House address in which he resurrected debunked claims about the 2020 election and alleged sweeping foreign interference in voting and pressured Congress to pass the anti-voting SAVE America Act.

Following years of claiming that the election was stolen, he presented no evidence that any domestic or registration records had in any way impacted the result of the 2020 election.

In an incoherent speech, Trump claimed China obtained 220 million US voter files and accused intelligence officials-whom he termed the “Deep State” of suppressing evidence of voter fraud.

He was of the view that electronic systems had been compromised. According to a US intelligence company, there was no foreign attempt to alter voter registration, ballot casting or the reporting of results in 2020.

In this connection, Trump said: “Addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the SAVE America Act.”

“The only reason you wouldn't do it is if you want to cheat.”

Trump also required a major conclusion to and mail voting falsely calling the practice “inherently corrupt.”

During his speech, the president further claimed that an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security had identified 278,000 registered foreign nationals registered to vote in federal elections.

Today, I’m asking the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden,”

“To investigate how and why information about China’s election meddling and related security breaches was suppressed, and to fire those responsible for the cover-up,” Trump said.

Democrats pan speech

Democratic lawmakers, election experts and voting-rights defenders were unimpressed by Trump’s conspiracy-befuddled speech.

Election law expert Rick Hasen called the speech “underwhelming” and said Trump’s alleged bombshells to establish the one thing that would matter: that any illegal votes were cast or any election system had been breached.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, US Sen.Mark Warner dismissed Trump's claims shortly after the speech. “Trump’s shocking bombshells about China are totally bogus,” he said.

“The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election.”

Declassified files tell different story

Journalists and experts who began assessing the newly released documents noticed that the records seemed to conflict with Trump’s central claims that China sought to interfere in the 2020 election against him.

Journalist Sam Stein indicated that one intelligence document but also concluded that China did not intend to subtly meddle and sway the outcome of the election.

Consequently, Garrett Archer, a former senior analyst at the Arizona Secretary of State’s office said the records did not support Trump’s declaration that China hacked election infrastructure.

In the meantime, CNN’s Zachary Cohen noted that the documents largely rehashed information that has been known for years or was already reflected in the Intelligence Community’s assessment.

He wrote, “The documents Trump is referring to right now and CNN has reviewed all of them, largely discuss vulnerabilities that have been known for years and are reflected in the 2021 US intel community assessment.”